Commitment phobia? Probably not.
But, Amadeus CEO Luis Maroto revealed today that there are no volume commitments in the recently signed Amadeus-Expedia partnership.
Expedia agreed to use Amadeus for global distribution services in North America, supplementing the Expedia-Sabre partnership, but Maroto indicated that any transaction volumes heading Amadeus’s way from Expedia is entirely at Expedia’s discretion.
“We have our own internal estimates but there is no agreed commitment from Expedia,” Maroto said.
Some online travel agencies such as Expedia.com use multiple GDSs for diversity’s sake.
Maroto’s comments came during a conference call today with financial analysts about Amadeus’s first quarter earnings.
Amadeus has been striving for years to increase its market share in North America, with the recent Expedia agreement and a  Southwest Airlines pact providing some hope.
Tnooz reported more than a year ago that Amadeus was considering opening a data center in the US, and the agreements with Southwest and Expedia certainly won’t get in the way of that possibility.
In response to a question about it today after the earnings call, an Amadeus spokesperson said:
This [Southwest] agreement doesn’t necessarily mean Amadeus will construct a US data center.  We continuously review our operational infrastructure based on the needs of our customers.  We will ensure robust operational performance for Southwest Airlines and all our US customers.
Note: Photo courtesy of Shutterstock
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no coverage of the expedia and priceline results dennis?
expedia falling further behind with priceline room night growth 2x expedia.
@eric – hey, thx for the comment.
Dennis covered EXPE here: http://www.tnooz.com/2012/04/27/news/adding-hotels-is-expedia-conceding-the-race-to-booking-com/
Eric: Here you go:) http://www.tnooz.com/2012/05/10/news/would-it-be-apt-for-priceline-to-have-something-in-store-for-homeaway/
article says exp refocussing on demand instead of supply, doing ok. in reality has been trounced and nolonger number 1. nothing on that.
Eric: Expedia hasn’t been #1 in global hotels for a very long time. We’ve been reporting that for years.
in market capitalization. and about to overtake in overall gross bookings across all products.
tnooz deep dive on how have they gone from #4 to #1 under the radar?
Eric: Here’s more fodder. It’s been an ongoing story http://www.tnooz.com/2012/02/10/news/would-lack-of-tech-execution-at-expedia-lead-to-an-execution/ Where have you been?:)
not much on priceline….can’t write article on demise of bing without lots on google
some charts comparing? this is not just a minor beating…tech execution is like 1/10th of the reason.
mentions of priceline on tnooz 895
mentions of expedia on tnooz 6630
size of priceline – $34,000mm
size of expedia – $5,000mm
@eric – not sure what you’re driving at here?
that expedia gets about 50x more airtime on here than priceline if you work out it on a per dollar of size basis.
@eric – generally do not feel we have to justify our coverage, but you do raise some stats that are easy to address…
You have found articles by keyword.
1) Up until very recently we would often mention Expedia (“Expedia-owned…”) for most TripAdvisor stories.
2) Expedia has a large number of sub-brands (Hotwire, Egencia, Venere et al), so Expedia would generally be mentioned in articles related to those as well.
3) Expedia spun-off TA last year – we wrote a lot about that.
4) Expedia is a member of FairSearch, the anti-Google lobbying group, which we have covered extensively on Tnooz.